Wow! That frieze is something, isn't it? And here was the perfect opportunity for using a video camera to capture the depth & perspective. Given this was "snapped in passing" I thing you show remarkable steadiness of hand and smoothness of action. Only a proper circular dolly or glidetrack would do better.

Due to the greater amount of detail to show with the Paul Day, I thought the film seemed rather imbalancedin terms of time spent showing each sculpture. I wonder whether it might have worked better the other way round, such that the "wow" factor of the frieze (which for me is definitely the highlight) occurs towards the end of the film.

I enjoyed the "melting" bronze effect at the beginning, but I thought that overall there were too many different effects (metallic look, melting, bronze look, whip pans, pencil drawings, bevel). I'd suggest limiting to one or two types. I didn't understand why you used the bevelled effect whilst showing the frieze - I found this distracting. Maybe due to the close up nature of the shots you were suffering a bit of a fish-eye effect and this was an imaginitive attempt to hide it. If so I think I'd prefer a different approach - even a straight frame around it (if you don't want to soften the image by cropping and expanding), or a vignette. Or use it as a part of a Picture-in-Picture. I'm sure othere here will have other suggestion (if indeed fish-eye was the problem).

In summary, good camerawork, and subjects, well edited, consider rearranging the sequences and use fewer effects.

Peter I can't comment from a cameramans view as I don't have the experience , but from a viewer i found you film outstanding, the section where you covered the carvings under the statue had me blown away...and my concentration was 100% on the subject....

I really enjoyed watching that film. The camera work was brilliant considering it must have been all hand held and the composition of the shots was also very good. I thought the bronze frame round the scenes of the frieze worked well and gave more impact to that part of the film. I'm not quite sure about how the line art transitions fitted in, but then again I like that sort of effect and they did work well. I also liked your choice of background music which I think fitted the subject very well.

Having watched that film I'm going to have to take a much closer look at the statue next time I'm at St.Pancras.

Having taken up space on IAC forums criticising judgements it may seem rash to make any comment but here goes.
You did what you intended, drawing our attention to and, to my mind, confounding the critics of this beautiful piece of art.
As to technique - I personally didn't like the bronze frame and, again personally, like transitions to be as simple as possible but I think this is a matter of opinion and feel people should do what they like best. No one has yet mentioned your use of slo-mo to smooth camera shake. It works well, and more to the point, it mimics human vision well; not exactly like it but a cinematic alternative where you linger on one part then move comparatively fast to another.
I would have left the comment on Betjeman's probable approval to when we see his statue and wouldn't have cut back to the close up of the couple, she with the mobile, but it is a nice bit of humour.
I have watched it repeatedly and will watch it again as I see different things each time round.
Thank you for making it available to us.
Peter.

TimStannard wrote:Wow! That frieze is something, isn't it? And here was the perfect opportunity for using a video camera to capture the depth & perspective. Given this was "snapped in passing" I thing you show remarkable steadiness of hand and smoothness of action. Only a proper circular dolly or glidetrack would do better.

Due to the greater amount of detail to show with the Paul Day, I thought the film seemed rather imbalancedin terms of time spent showing each sculpture. I wonder whether it might have worked better the other way round, such that the "wow" factor of the frieze (which for me is definitely the highlight) occurs towards the end of the film.

I enjoyed the "melting" bronze effect at the beginning, but I thought that overall there were too many different effects (metallic look, melting, bronze look, whip pans, pencil drawings, bevel). I'd suggest limiting to one or two types. I didn't understand why you used the bevelled effect whilst showing the frieze - I found this distracting. Maybe due to the close up nature of the shots you were suffering a bit of a fish-eye effect and this was an imaginitive attempt to hide it. If so I think I'd prefer a different approach - even a straight frame around it (if you don't want to soften the image by cropping and expanding), or a vignette. Or use it as a part of a Picture-in-Picture. I'm sure othere here will have other suggestion (if indeed fish-eye was the problem).

In summary, good camerawork, and subjects, well edited, consider rearranging the sequences and use fewer effects.

Thanks indeed for your helpful comments.
I added the bevelled effect to hide extraneous light areas top and bottom which I felt were distracting. I'm sure there is a better way to do it.
I take your point about transitions - maybe too many, and the sequence. I put the pencil effect on the end shot to emphasize the architectural/engineering design of the impressive structure.

Chrisbitz wrote:I have to agree with you, I think it's a fascinating statue, and you capture its 3Dness very well. I love the frieze at the base too - looks wonderfully detailed!

What lens did you use? there's some interesting wide angle distortion as you pan up the statue﻿ at the start...

Also, I'm impressed you didn't get shot at for being a terrorist, taking video inside a station! Did you ask permission or did you just get lucky?

It's the lens on my Panasonic HC-X900M which I'm thrilled to bits with.
No I did not ask permission to film. I respect genuine security issues but do resents silly paranoid restrictions in public places! Is there a law against it?

Portland42 wrote:
No I did not ask permission to film. I respect genuine security issues but do resents silly paranoid restrictions in public places! Is there a law against it?

As an aside, technically St Pancras is not a public place (as is the case with many places we think of a s public - eg shopping centres). As I understand it, the owners can entirely legally insist you stop, though they cannot seize what you have already filmed.